A Criticism of Boss Edge (TL;DR Included)

I have given boss edge to a humanoid boss before in the form of a mage/priestess. she was channeling the power of a dark god, though the god himself was not present, she was the focus of the channeling, and the god had a will of his own. so, her turn was her own movement/action, and the boss edge was the dark god manifesting his presence in the room to aid his priestess.

A second example of this would be a king I had built who was being mind controlled by a dark psionic essence. The king has his full complement of actions, and the chaotic effects of the dark presence were the boss edge.

As for a troll, the boss edge could be used simply to regenerate HP or do other minor lumbering attacks. the possibilities are truely limitless.

I just used boss edge for the first time. Iā€™m comparing this experience to other systems. In other systems, if you have one powerful boss the players always have the advantage of action economy. This means a well prepared team of PCs run by experienced players will polish off the boss in one or two rounds. You can beef up the BBEG with templates and other shenanigans, but if youā€™re providing a level appropriate encounter with a single creatures, thereā€™s a point when PC victory is inevitable. After a while, players lose interest because they know theyā€™ll win.

If you add a ton of minions, the fight can drag on. That gets old after awhile.

Then thereā€™s the issue of planning. It takes some time to plan a well balanced, challenging boss fight, and the scenarios that lead up to it. The older I get, the less time I have to plan encounters and campaigns. Kids, careers, and causes eat up time. That means quality suffers with more complex systems. (Iā€™m looking at you, Pathfinder.)

The edge system addresses those issues. It allows me to make one powerful enemy that can single handedly provide a challenge to my group. It mitigates, but doesnā€™t negate, the action economy advantage the players have. This alone increases the challenge. My players reacted with real fear for their PCs when they learned theyā€™d lost the action economy advantage. I didnā€™t have to add a ton of minions to keep it challenging. That meant a lot less for me to track as the GM. That is so wonderful. Finally, I didnā€™t have to invest an enormous amount of time to create a challenging boss fight. I created one boss character for the encounter. He downed two of six PCs and had three more on the ropes before a dice explosion finished him. It was an awesome moment and a memorable fight. My friends are still talking about it.

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Just a suggestion but if you donā€™t like Boss Edge maybe you could use the Damage Threshold mecanic from the vehicule rules instead to give your boss more bulk and prevent a one shot. It may feel less unfair than multiple actions, make it less obvious to the players that they are fighting a boss, and easier to explain in the story.